Classmates Minus 同學麥娜絲 (2020): The Comedy Where the Director Runs into the Frame to Punch His Own Character — Because Life Is That Frustrating

I need to tell you about the ending first.

Not because it's a spoiler — though it is — but because it's the key to everything.

In the final act of Classmates Minus, the character Wu Ming-tian (a failed filmmaker turned political puppet) is giving a campaign speech at the funeral of his best friend. Yes, you read that correctly. He is using a funeral as a political rally. He is standing over a coffin, handing out campaign merchandise, and thanking the deceased for "supporting him until the end."

And then — the camera shakes. A figure storms into the frame. It's the director. Huang Hsin-yao himself. He walks up to Wu Ming-tian and starts punching him. On screen. In his own movie.

"This is the first time in film history," one critic wrote, "that a director has physically attacked his own character" [citation:6].

After a brief scuffle, the director's assistant pulls him away. He straightens his shirt, looks at the camera, and says: "Sometimes, filming is so frustrating that you can't tell the difference between the movie and real life anymore."

Then he walks off. The movie continues. The funeral ends. The credits roll.

This is Classmates Minus. A movie so angry at its own characters — and at the world they represent — that its creator literally intervenes. It's messy. It's self-indulgent. It's also, somehow, the most honest film about turning forty ever made.

Part One: Plus, Minus, and the Arithmetic of Failure

The title is a joke in two parts.

First, it's a pun on the director's previous film, The Great Buddha+ (2017). That film was about the gap between rich and poor — a "plus" that was inaccessible to the vast majority. Classmates Minus is about what happens to the losers left behind. Subtraction. Loss. Diminishment.

Second, "minus" sounds like "麦娜丝" — the name of the high school goddess that one of the characters, Guan-tou, has worshipped from afar for two decades.

But the real meaning of the title becomes clear as the film unfolds: these four friends aren't just "minus" in the mathematical sense. They are living lives of subtraction. Their dreams shrink. Their choices narrow. Their friends die.

As one critic put it: "人生加加減減，負負卻不得正" — Life adds and subtracts, but two negatives never make a positive [citation:6].

The film opens with four high school classmates in their late thirties, sitting around a dusty table at a "bubble tea shop" (泡沫紅茶店), playing cards and talking nonsense. They've been doing this for twenty years. The decor hasn't changed. Their jokes haven't changed. Their lives — well, they've changed, but not for the better.

This is the space where they retreat from the world. But the world keeps finding them.

Part Two: The Four Horsemen of the Middle-Aged Apocalypse

Let me introduce you to the four protagonists. They are all, in their own ways, deeply, achingly ordinary.

Wu Ming-tian (Shih Ming-shuai) — "Tomorrow"

Ming-tian's name is a pun on "tomorrow" (明天). He has spent his entire life waiting for tomorrow. He carries a lottery ticket in his wallet that missed the jackpot by one number. He believes he is a great director, though he has directed nothing of consequence and doesn't even know how to adjust a camera's aperture .

When a local politician recruits him to run for office as a puppet candidate, he abandons his filmmaking dreams without a second thought. "He's not a filmmaker," one character says. "He's just a guy who's afraid of being nothing" [citation:6].

Ming-tian's arc is the film's darkest satire. He learns to lie effortlessly. He cheats on his wife. He exploits his friends' tragedies for political gain. And he succeeds. He is the only one of the four who "wins" — and winning makes him a monster.

Dian-feng (Cheng Jen-shuo) — "Electric Wind"

Dian-feng is the film's moral center — and its most tragic figure. He works as an insurance agent. He is competent, hardworking, and utterly ignored by his superiors. His boss, a former classmate, promotes less capable people over him because they play the corporate game better.

Dian-feng buys a new apartment with his late father's savings. He parks his car in a cramped space because he can't afford a real garage. His girlfriend gets pregnant, and he isn't ready. He does everything right — and gets nothing in return.

"I do everything seriously," he says at one point. "But nothing works out" .

In the film's most quietly devastating scene, Dian-feng walks to a lake, takes off his shoes, and jumps in. He doesn't drown. He just... floats. When the director asks him why he jumped, he says: "I just wanted to."

This is not suicide. It's surrender. The recognition that effort and outcome have no relationship. That swimming is pointless when you don't know which direction the shore is in.

Guan-tou (Na Dow) — "Canned Head"

Guan-tou is the film's comic relief and its saddest soul. He attempted suicide by swallowing an entire bottle of diet pills (yes, diet pills — because even his suicide attempt was half-hearted) and failed. After recovering, he takes a job as a census worker for the household registration office [citation:1].

On a routine visit, he discovers that the woman behind the door is his high school crush — the goddess he has worshipped for twenty years. The woman he called "Minus."

She doesn't recognize him. She is now a "meridian therapist" working out of a shabby apartment. She wears a silk robe and asks: "Are you here to see me, or to pay for a service?" .

Guan-tou sits on her bed, surrounded by red light, and cries. Not because she has "fallen" — but because he finally sees her as a person. A real person with bills and a past and a body that ages.

The director's narration explains: "For most men, there is a goddess in their youth. But as they age, the goddess fades. Some men, however, cannot let go. They place her on an altar in their hearts. Guan-tou had placed Minus next to his ancestors. He should never have taken her down. After all, when a goddess descends to earth, everything returns to its original form. Distance is lost. So is the beauty of fantasy" .

Bi-jie (Liu Kuan-ting) — "Stutter"

Bi-jie is the film's secret weapon — and its heart. He is a paper-craft artist, making offerings for funerals. He stutters so badly that he can barely speak to living people. But when the dead visit him in dreams, he speaks fluently.

He lives with his grandmother, who is dying. He can't afford a wife. He can't afford much of anything. And yet, Bi-jie is the only character who seems content.

In one extraordinary sequence, Bi-jie builds a paper house — a model so detailed that it has windows, doors, and a view of Mount Fuji painted on the wall. He invites his friends to sit inside it. They drink beer. They laugh. For a few minutes, they are safe.

Then the house is destroyed. Bi-jie is murdered. By accident. By strangers. By a world that doesn't notice him.

His death is meaningless. There is no lesson. No closure. He is simply gone.

One viewer wrote: "He died suddenly, tragically, meaninglessly. And that's the point. Catastrophe doesn't announce itself. It just arrives" [citation:7].

Part Three: The Goddess on the Altar and the Woman in the Room

Let me dwell on Guan-tou's story for a moment, because it contains the film's sharpest critique.

"Minus" is not a real woman. She is a projection. Guan-tou has never spoken to her. He has never known her. He has simply worshipped her from afar, building a fantasy in which she represents everything he lacks: beauty, success, escape.

When he finally meets her — as a middle-aged woman working in a dimly lit apartment — the fantasy collapses. She asks if he is a customer. She quotes a price. The goddess is gone. In her place is a woman trying to survive.

The director's narration here is brutal: "After all, when a goddess descends to earth, everything returns to its original form. Distance is lost. So is the beauty of fantasy" .

This is not a critique of sex work. It is a critique of the male gaze — of the way men turn women into symbols rather than people. Guan-tou isn't sad because Minus is "lost." He's sad because he finally has to see her. And seeing her means seeing himself.

As one academic analysis put it: "The film's treatment of Minus is deliberately 'simple and crude' — she is a signifier, not a character. But that is the point. She was never real to him. She was always a symbol of his own desire for success. The woman in the red light district is just the moment the symbol shatters" .

Part Four: The Director Who Couldn't Stay Behind the Camera

The most distinctive feature of Classmates Minus — and of Huang Hsin-yao's style more broadly — is the narration.

The director speaks directly to the audience throughout the film. He explains character motivations. He makes jokes. He comments on the action. He breaks the fourth wall so often that by the end, there's no wall left.

This technique, known in theater as the "Brechtian alienation effect," is meant to remind viewers that they are watching a constructed story . But in Classmates Minus, it serves a different purpose. It's a confession.

The director is not omniscient. He's just as confused as the characters. He doesn't have answers. He's making it up as he goes along. And sometimes — as with the funeral fight — he gets so frustrated that he abandoms the frame entirely.

"I've never seen a director run into the frame to beat up his own character," one reviewer wrote [citation:6]. "But that's exactly what makes this movie work. It's not pretending to be art. It's real rage at a real world."

This self-awareness is the film's greatest strength and its greatest weakness. It can feel self-indulgent. It can feel like a director who loves the sound of his own voice. But it can also feel like watching a friend who trusts you enough to drop the performance.

As one Letterboxd user put it: "Some say it's self-indulgent. Maybe. But I think filmmaking should be as pure as writing a diary entry. And he did that" [citation:5].

Part Five: Why "Minus" Is the Right Word for This Generation

Classmates Minus was released in 2020 — a year when "minus" took on new meanings for everyone. But even before the pandemic, Huang Hsin-yao was interested in the arithmetic of disappointment.

His previous film, The Great Buddha+, was about the impossibility of "plus" for the poor. This film is about the inevitability of "minus" for everyone.

By their late thirties, these four characters have lost their dreams (Ming-tian), their dignity (Dian-feng), their illusions (Guan-tou), and their lives (Bi-jie). They are not tragic heroes. They are not cautionary tales. They are just... what happens.

One reviewer wrote: "Unlike mainland films that use racing, dreams, and fantasy to fuel 'midlife crisis,' Huang Hsin-yao gives us hopeless stories. After 40, life is subtraction. Everything is MINUS" [citation:7].

The film's final sequence is a cruel joke. It cuts to a glossy real estate advertisement, showing the four friends as successful businessmen, drinking wine in a luxury apartment, smiling at their beautiful wives.

"Two hundred million Taiwanese dollars," the ad says. "Owning this home means you've succeeded in life."

Then it cuts back to reality. Dian-feng is still broke. Guan-tou is still alone. Ming-tian is still a puppet. And Bi-jie is dead.

The ad is a lie. The film knows it. And now, so do we.

Final Thoughts

Classmates Minus is not a perfect film. It's messy. It's uneven. Its humor can be juvenile. Its self-awareness can tip into self-congratulation.

But it's also the only film I've seen that captures what it actually feels like to be forty.

Not the Hollywood version — where middle age means a red sports car and a second chance at love. Not the prestige drama version — where it means a dignified reckoning with mortality. Just the ordinary version.

The version where your dreams don't die in a blaze of glory. They just... fade. Like a lottery ticket that missed by one number. Like a goddess who was never real. Like a friend who's just gone one day, and you don't even get to say goodbye.

Huang Hsin-yao ends the film with a shot of the bubble tea shop — empty now, the chairs pushed in, the cards put away. His voice says: "This film is dedicated to my classmates. And to everyone who will face the same."

Then the screen goes black.

No credits music. No final joke. Just silence.

Because sometimes, there's nothing left to say.

Have you seen Classmates Minus? Which character do you recognize in yourself? Let me know in the comments.

Tom De · The Movie Prince 🎬